“I would like to take that man’s place. He has a wife and children.” ...“Who are you?” ... “A priest.”
The 14th August marked the feast day of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan Priest, who died as prisoner 16770 in Auschwitz, on the 14/8/1941.According to the Auschwitz Memorial Museum, his hour of death was recorded at 12.30.
In 2016, we were delighted that over 200 Iraqi young people were able to join the World Youth Day celebrations in Krakow, Poland and were accompanied by Bishops, Priests and Sisters.
All were representative of a broad layer of the Iraqi community - from Churches in Baghdad through to Kurdistan.
The people of Poland welcomed the Iraqi community, while the media applauded their courage.
Moments of celebration were also captured, where Iraq’s young people mobilised thousands of delegates, into a chorus of traditional Arabic dancing, to the accompaniment of live Iraqi music.
Among those who also welcomed the Iraqi Christians to Krakow, were young people from around the world, where from the site of the Auschwitz Camp and the shrine to St Maximilian Kolbe - sent recorded messages of solidarity to the Iraqi contingent.
The overwhelming majority of the young people and members of the clergy, who travelled to Poland and took part in World Youth Day 2016, had each experienced loss and displacement as a result of persecution, due to the 2014 ISIS invasion, over large parts of Iraq.
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